Lorica Segmentata with Chainmail?

From a practicality standpoint, would it have been reasonable to combine the Roman Lorica Segmentata armor with chainmail armor underneath, as Medieval soldiers would combine their plate armor with chainmail?
 
It would be quite impractical as the chain-mail hauberk it self would weigh over 10 kgs. The lorica segmentata was itself over a dozen kilos. The added protection would be useful but the weight would definitely tire soldiers out faster.
 
On a similar note, how advanced were Roman metallurgy?
Could the Roman Republic have equipped its soldiers with lamellar armour, like what the Byzantines wore?
 
Not exactly combination in medieval sense, but some Roman Lorica Hamata armor (roman chainmail) did have some Segmentata features installed as reinforcements. Especially with manica-equipped legionaries fighting in steepe and persian borders

Pure Segmentata armor did have easier maintenance requirenments, but they are much harder to produce and much more expensive. Lorica Hamata is much more common
 
You could use plated mail.
Zbroja_lamelkowa1.jpg
 
On a similar note, how advanced were Roman metallurgy?
Could the Roman Republic have equipped its soldiers with lamellar armour, like what the Byzantines wore?

If you can make segmented armour, you can make lamellar. They did, too, though only after about AD 300 AFAIK. The reason, I suspect, is simply intended use. Roman armourers were capable pf producing full-body protection (the crupellarius type of gladiator was known for this type of armour, and Tacitus mentions the diffioculty soldiers had killing some in battle). But Roman soldiers would have found them a hindrance in their style of warfare. Bear in mind a legion was expected to move with a minimum of 'tail' (few supply wagons, one mule and servant per eight or ten men) and march at a sustained rate of 35 km a day. Try that with the kind of protection a fourteenth-century knight puts on before battle.

Roman cavalry apparently did move to a much more complete form of armour quickly, in somwe cases including segmented shoulder protection over mail shirts or - later on - lamellar cuirasses worn over mail. I'm not sure how they worked out the logistics, but by the late Empire, armies moved more slowly anyway.
 
From a practicality standpoint, would it have been reasonable to combine the Roman Lorica Segmentata armor with chainmail armor underneath, as Medieval soldiers would combine their plate armor with chainmail?

They tended to combine lorica segmenta with manica and greaves when they needed heavily armoured legionaries (as in Dacia against the falx or two handed axe)

It was the coverage rather than the depth of protection that seemed to concern the Romans the most.
 

Neirdak

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On a similar note, how advanced were Roman metallurgy?
Could the Roman Republic have equipped its soldiers with lamellar armour, like what the Byzantines wore?

The Lorica squamata (scale armour) existed during the pre-Byzantine ear. The Roman victory triumph depicting Trajan's victory over the Dacians, the Tropaeum Traiani, shows the majority of legionaries wearing lorica squamata. On another Trajanic monument (the Adamclisi Tropaeum) the lorica segmentata does not appear at all, and legionaries and auxilia alike are depicted wearing either mail or scales (lorica squamata).

Lorica plumata was also a lamellar armour, but more expensive.

There were :

- Lorica segmentata/lorica laminata (laminar armour, four types actually existed)
- Lorica Albae Juliae (statue found at Alba Julia in Romania, shoulders being protected by scale armour and the torso hoops being fewer in number and deeper).
- Lorica hamata (mail armour)
- Lorica squamata (scale armour)
- Lorica plumata (scale mail)

Each of those armours had various types.

Legions were broken up and distributed around all these small bases, then it implies a tactical use of the legions that has not previously been considered. Hitherto, the legions were regarded as shock troops employed only en masse and not broken up into detachments. In my opinion, all those armours coexisted in legions/detachements and were simply used according to tactical situations and geographical contexts, either by auxillaries or legionnaries.

It's fun to imagine, what would have happened if Roman legions used Crupellarius armors in certain circumstances. Sadly, it probably didn't happen :(
 
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